


Run

by Oswald



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Diamond & Pearl & Platinum | Pokemon Diamond Pearl Platinum Versions
Genre: Akatsukishipping, F/M, Language, Lobo Go Back to Bed, man this is depressing, talk of religion, talk of stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-08
Updated: 2012-09-08
Packaged: 2017-11-13 19:38:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/506999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oswald/pseuds/Oswald
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I hate you.” She sobs, her body shaking.<br/>“I know you do.” Cyrus responds softly, kissing the back of her neck<br/>[With every light, there must be shadow.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Run  
> Fandom: Pokemon  
> Genre: Hurt  
> Pairing: Akatsukishipping (Dawn/Cyrus)  
> Rating: PG-15  
> Word Count: 5816  
> Warnings: Talk of religion, talk of stalking, language  
> I don't own Pokemon. If I did, it'd be a lot darker.

 

           They live simply at first: Cyrus didn’t even _want_ the house—he saw it as a luxury. Why live in a confined space when the entire universe was yours to control, to create?

            But Dawn wanted the house so badly and begged him and begged him until finally, with one giant sigh, Cyrus tells her ‘all right’ and wills the house into existence.

            And that’s how his addiction begins.

            It’s a nice one, Dawn says when she sees it. Small, two stories, a little deck in the front for chairs, and a porch out back over looking the forest they reside in (something else Cyrus thought was silly, but Dawn had begged him for). The colours inside are grey and blue and as Dawn steps in, she takes to walking from room to room, turning ‘round and inspecting every nook and cranny. She’s totally silent, letting her hands grace the doorways, the walls, and the simplistic decorations. It’s all smooth, clean lines, and graceful archways and when she’s done, Dawn turns to face him and kisses him chastely.

            And Cyrus, for one brief moment, is happy.

            And he only finds out too late that he’s _always_ been happy with Dawn. Sure, she’s young (much, much too young), she’s clumsy at times, and she’s inquisitive at times when she just needs to hush at let ‘nature’ (AKA: Cyrus) do its work. But she smiles at him. Not the fake ones that the Commanders used to give him, not that sickeningly saccharine one Charon used to flatter him with.

            Only one other person smiled at him like that, and he was long gone. And that smile is like ambrosia—at first glance is laps it up greedily and is instantly craving more.

            So he starts to do things that make her smile. As he creates the new world, he asks for her input, asks for her advice. She’s not a goddess for nothing, after all.

            They create together. And soon, the world is beautiful—efficient, productive. The people know no more then they are supposed to and are totally content with this. Pokemon are separate from the humans, humans live by the rules set out before them, and all is well in the world.

            Well, in _Cyrus’s_ world. Because if he had taken a moment, just one, to look at the young girl that stood beside him, maybe he would have seen the entire mess careening at him like a train with its breaks out of commission.

            But he doesn’t. He doesn’t notice the weariness in her eyes, the lines that have started at the corners of her mouth. All he sees is that smile, the one that made him actually feel content with life. The one that he can’t get enough of. The one that keeps him up at night and distracts him during the day. The smile keeps him content with life—he assumes that she feels the same.

            It doesn’t take much time for his world—no, no that’s not right, not his, _their_ s—to take form. To take a definite shape, and to become something other then a fevered dream or a mass of unorganized, raw, material.

            So, Cyrus stops. He steps back and he lets them live, intervenes at times, removes and adds things that need to be removed and added. He lives by he philosophy that they must learn for themselves—he can only give them so much, after all: too much and they become dependent and mindless. Too little and they forget their place.

            And Dawn stands beside him all the same, looking at her creations, her ‘children’ with a mixture of love and pity (and if Cyrus would have paid attention, he would have seen disgust too)

~*~

           

            It is only when their world is done to Cyrus’s liking that he informs her that they might as well get married now. Like’s an afterthought. Except it’s not because he can’t get the damned girl off his mind, every goddamn day. He looks at her and just wants that goddamned _smile_.

            But he’s good at hiding things like that.  And when she takes over too much of his mind, or just when he need silence, and peace, and a place to organizes his thoughts he walls himself off into a little section of the world that is known to only him and Dawn—she doesn’t try to go to that place. She has her own.

            Cyrus is respectful enough to let her keep it, that not-so secret garden that she had strived for so long and so hard to keep a secret. But she should know better, he thinks—this is _his_ world, he knows everything that goes on in it.

            She keeps flowers in her garden. Clear water, green grass, and the sky is always blue. Her pokemon, the ones she had before she became _his_ , all reside there. Her mother does too—they’re all copies, of course. There was no way to _truly_ resurrect the dead and gone, Dawn had tried a thousand times. So she settled with the copies and Cyrus said nothing of it.

            But Cyrus doesn’t see the need for such frivolities. His space is simple. And yet, it is just as complex as the space he so thrived to be amongst. There is silence, but there is noise. And there is darkness and light. Everything is muted, but everything is brilliant all at once.

            It’s the only place he feels totally at peace. He doesn’t regret becoming a god, not in the least—not after all the work, the sacrifice, the blood and sweat that has gone into it. But when he’s outside, in the world, his mind is buzzing with noise, with prayers and requests. And he, a god, must sort them all out and decide “yea” or “nea” for them all. A daunting task, perhaps, but Cyrus is no stranger to difficult tasks. In fact, over time, he’s learned to balance it all out quite nicely. His mind is split into two: thoughts for his subject, and thoughts for himself.

            And Dawn…

            But there she is again, taking space he really doesn’t have. On her good days, she’s quiet and small, and he’s okay with not thinking about her from time to time. Those are the days he likes best—days when he returns home and she is there reading a book, or listening to the radio, and he can come in and sit beside her and read with her. They don’t talk, because they don’t _need_ to talk. And Cyrus can think of nothing better then that.

            But then the bad days come—the ones where the sky suddenly turns dark grey, and the wind blows, and the seas roar, and he _knows_ Dawn is sitting on their kitchen floor, screaming and sobbing.

            Cyrus fears nothing, no man nor beast. But those are the days when he swallows back something he refuses to admit to.

            Because when he enters their home, the place is usually a mess. Sometimes it will be the bathroom, splattered with blood and water. Or it will be the main room, with the rope barely hanging onto the ceiling fan. Or, on the _really_ bad days, it will be in the backyard, his Honchkrow devouring the remains that have fallen from the top of the house.

            Dawn is smart. She knows gods are immortal. But on those days, she doesn’t seem to care—she wants to hurt (herself or Cyrus, it doesn’t seem to matter much) and she seems to relish in the pain. And when she pulls herself back together ( _literally_ , sometimes) she refuses to look at him. Instead, she’ll just sit up and get to work cleaning. It should (could) be a simple task, all she really has to do is will the mess into nonexistence—but she never does. She just gets a bucket and begins scrubbing.

            The tiles in the bathroom never were white again. They always had a red tinge to them. The same with the grass in the backyard—the spot never seemed to grow _right_ , no matter WHAT they did.

            So Cyrus begins to keep her at home—of course, she’s free to leave, to go where she pleases, but when she _does_ , he always knows. He follows her, watches her, and makes sure she doesn’t hurt herself again. That doesn’t stop _every_ time, of course, it certainly didn’t stop the time she decided to lay down on the train tracks ( _that_ was quite a hassle to clean up), but Cyrus assures himself that he’s doing good. That he’s prevented a number of _other_ times, times that he fears that could be permanent (he knows better, he knows that can never happen, but the fear never strays far from his mind).

            But then the _bad_ days start happening more and more and frankly, she’s starting to look dead on her feet. She doesn’t smile anymore, doesn’t laugh, doesn’t talk. The days are dark and grey and the farmers are starting to pray for sunshine.

            It’s one of these dark, gloomy days when Cyrus finally ( _finally_ ) slips the ring onto her finger and tells her that he wants to marry her properly, like a _real_ couple should. For once, he actually _tries_ to sound interested, because he is.

            She’s too busy staring at the slice across her belly to really understand what he’s saying. Too busy watching the red seep from the wound, the skin slowly reconnecting itself, the tissue slowly coming back to life. And when she _does_ notice him and _does_ see the ring, all she can do is break down into tears, pulling her knees to her chest and her forehead onto the caps of her legs

            “I hate you.” She sobs, her body shaking.

            “I know you do.” Cyrus responds softly, kissing the back of her neck. But he doesn’t hate her. In the eyes of some pathetic, romantic poet, one would even say that he _loved_ her.

            But love is an emotion for children, playing at adult games, and Cyrus just doesn’t have time for that. So he doesn’t love—she’s simply the person he made into his goddess.

~*~

            She cries and cries, and he doesn’t make her stop. He lets her cry because, frankly, she _deserves_ to cry. Cyrus understands, even if it’s only on the intellectual level, why. He’s taken her from everything she’s ever known, everything she’d ever had, and thrust her into a situation she couldn’t really comprehend. She would adjust, of course she would—Dawn was a smart child and she was adaptable. But she was still just that: _a child_. A child playing at adult games, Cyrus thinks solemnly as she sobs on their bed.

            All he wants her to do is smile. Maybe if he had broken the emotionless exterior and actually _thought_ for once, and asked (begged) her to smile, just smile, please, my beautiful Dawn, _please_ smile for me, she would have. Maybe she would have been as happy as she was in the very beginning.

            But she was never happy, Cyrus realizes slowly—she had smiled, but it had been haggard and tired. She had all but given up.

            Maybe if he had asked…but he didn’t. He never asked, and she never learned, and when the mess, the _big_ mess, the one that Cyrus had feared for so long, _happens_ …all he can see is red. And that self-loathing, the one from his childhood, comes back with a vengeance, and it feels like a freight train slamming into him.

            And he destroys his office, sets the forest they lived in ablaze, and he rampages, the note torn to shreds and shoved into his pocket

            _Cyrus_  


_I’m sorry. Please don’t try to find me._

_Be careful._

_I’ll come back someday._

_—Dawn._

            And then, when his anger is quelled and replaced with grief, he rebuilds the forest, cleans up his office, and waits.

            And waits.

            And waits.

            And waits.

            And before he knows it a year and a half has passed and he is as lonely and desolate as he was when he was a child, with his parents staring disappointedly down at him, loathing the very sight of him.

            So he looks for her. A task that may seem easy to a god, but Cyrus has failed to take into account that, while he may be a god, Dawn was a goddess in her own right. And while she certainly isn’t as strong as he is, she is just as talented. Hell, maybe even _more_ so.

             And, to top it all off, she is elusive. And suddenly, Cyrus thinks back to his time as a young trainer, searching for legendaries in the tall bush. A few times, he think he sees her and a few times he _knows_ he sees her, but before he can get to her, she is gone. Like dust in the wind.

            Cyrus is persistent, however. At first, he hunts her like a wild arcanine, chasing after her wildly, willing to do anything to get her back, to get his little Dawn back (when had he started calling her that?). He finds anyone who he thinks may have known her, anyone she had started talking to or started getting close to and he interrogates them for information. He raids her secret garden, and tears it apart. And when he finds nothing in the garden, he burns it to the ground, enraged.

            But another year passes and he realizes that scaring her isn’t working. It only makes Dawn run faster and further away—so he tried the subtle approach.

            So, he dawns an old cover that he’s no stranger to—He becomes the Business Man, the charismatic gentleman of commerce that he _loathed_ being—his mouth hurt from smiling, his head hurt from dumbed down conversation and, in all honesty, being amongst the common folk gave him an all around ache. But if he is quiet and sly, maybe Dawn will slip up. Cyrus never let on that he’s looking for her, or for _anyone_ ; he doesn’t try to scare people into confessing that they’ve seen her. He just looks.

            At her temples (the art work of her is strange and, frankly, inaccurate) he looks amongst the worshipers and wonder if they know who she _really_ is. Not a mother goddess, not a creator, not the busty, voluptuous creature that the statues make her out to be—but _Dawn_. An intelligent, inquisitive, caring girl who he can’t seem to get off his mind.

            They prey to her for forgiveness, for favors, for her to look kindly on them when their final days come. Of course, they wouldn’t recognize neither the god nor goddess if they ever _really_ came across them. No, the layman would think he _recognized_ them, or that they had seen them before. But they would never put two and two together.

            Cyrus thinks it’s silly. He thinks that these people are below him, that no matter what he does, they still don’t get it. But he’s angry, he’s lonely, and he’s so wound up, that no matter what these common folk do, it’s always not enough.

            He enters his own temple _once_ and promptly leaves, the overwhelming buzz of prayers just too much for him to handle. Deep down, Cyrus thinks that maybe _that’s_ where Dawn is hiding. In the too extravagant, too luxurious walls of his temples…but if she’s running from him, why would she go to a place where she would be reminded of Cyrus 24/7?

            Either way, he makes a mental note to tweak the human brain so that they would, in effect, “take it down a notch”.

~*~

            He’s about given up when he sees her.

            Of course, at first, he thinks it’s just his imagination playing tricks on him again. It had been doing that for quite some time now and Cyrus was starting to realize that godhood still had its problems. He was just about to turn back to his newspaper and trying to read away his thoughts before something compels him to look again, just one last time.

            Two years and she looks a little bit older—her hair is longer, her features more defined. She’s certainly taller, and her body has become less straight-line and more curved (even if it’s only a little bit so). She’s sitting in the same coffee shop he is, sipping at a cup with wisps of steam curling around her lips and reading a book.

            And at that very moment, Cyrus feels a surge of something he _thinks_ is happiness. But he really can’t tell—it’s been so long since he’s felt that emotion, as pointless as it was.

            But he watches her. Waits and makes sure it really is Dawn, _his_ Dawn.

            When the waitress comes up to her and asks if she’s doing okay, and Dawn looks up and smiles _that_ smile and speaks in _that_ voice, the one that means she’s really happy, and tells the waitress that her drink is amazing, Cyrus knows.

            He _knows_.

            And he sits up from his table, the newspaper in her hands dropping with a soft flutter.

            Dawn notices him. Her face goes almost completely white, eyes as wide as saucer plates. And she throws money down on the table and turns and walks from the café, trying to pretend he isn’t there.

            Cyrus does the same, following her.

            She walks into a crowd, excusing herself as she maneuvers around people, clutching her backpack close. He can _hear_ her, “I’m sorry,” and “Excuse me” and “Pardon me”

            And he can’t help himself.

            “Dawn!” He cries out, trying to get her attention. People in the crowd turn and look at her and she breaks into a run, no longer interested in being polite.

            Cyrus had forgotten how _fast_ she is. But she’s always forgotten that while he may _look_ aged, he is certainly not an old man. He is strong, in both the mind and the body, and when she sprints ahead he’s quick on her tail, the people in the crowd unable (read, _unwilling_ ) to stop him.

            And then they’re sprinting in alleyways and he always _almost_ just misses her, but then she makes a gasp, or hits a can, or climbs up a chain link fence, and he’s right after her. At first he calls for her to stop, to just _stop_ , and tell him what’s going on, why she left, but then he stops calling for her and he _runs_.

            Her heart was thundering in her chest.

            He’s found her.

            She curses herself—she shouldn’t have let her guard down. Dawn leaps atop the close lid of a garbage disposal unit and back down onto the concrete, thinking that maybe if she went _this_ way or _that_ way, she would lose him. But she can hear him, hear the thundering of _his_ heart, hear the air pounding in _his_ lungs, and inwardly she wonders if she should just stop. If she should just let him take her and submit to his will again.

            But these past two years of freedom have been the best years she’s had in a long, long time—she’s not willing to give that up again. Dawn’s not willing to be his pet, his little flower. She is _Dawn_ , not the goddess, not the mother creator—she wants to be _Dawn_.

            She leaps onto chain link fence, climbing as fast as she can and for a brief moment, she thinks of Mt. Coronet, of the snow and the ice, and the hellish climb up the mountain to Stone Pillar. Up, up, up, to the sound that awaited her, to the lights, to the creatures of unimaginable potential and of utmost fear that roared and screamed there.

            Of the man, holding these creatures by a red chain, of his blazing eyes and his cold expression. Of her trying so hard, so very, very hard, but not being able to do it, not being able to defeat him. Of failing.

            Of the sound.

            Of the explosion of light and then the implosion of nothing.

            Of the darkness. Of the cold. Of the hand that led her into the light and of the voice that welcomed her to the new world, to the world she was going to help him create.

            _And this is how the world ends…_

            Her hands get to the top and Dawn realizes too late that the top is barbed and it _hurts_. But she ignores the pain, the blood that seeps at her wrists, and pulls herself over.

            And Dawn runs as fast as she can, and for a moment, she thinks she can’t hear him behind her, that she’s safe. And then she hears a thunderous roar and a brick walls forms suddenly in front of her, as if it’s always been. And at all sides, the brick wall traps her—the only way is behind.

            Where Cyrus stands panting, his eyes blazing.

            Dawn cries out in the agony of defeat as she punches the brick wall.

            “ _Why did you leave?!_ ” Cyrus is yelling at the top of his lungs. He’s furious, she can tell. He wouldn’t have used his powers if he _wasn’t_ furious.

            Dawn shakes her head fiercely.

            “Leave me alone!” She begs, clutching at her backpack, “Leave me alone, Cyrus, _let me go_.”

            “No.” He roars. And then he quiets, and Dawn thinks for just a second, she sees regret in his cold eyes.

            “Come back with me. If you’ll talk to me, we can work this out.” He says.

            Cyrus is talking to her like he would an injured, frightened pokemon. Dawn shakes her head again.

            “There’s nothing to work out— _let me go_. Leave me alone, please…please, _please_ , just leave me alone.”

            And she’s begging him now, if only to buy time.

            “What’s wrong Dawn?” He asks, and she can hear the desperation in his voice, “Tell me what’s wrong. Let me fix it. _Let me help you_.”

            He lunges at her, but he’s too late—she throws her hand behind her, swiping in a diagonal at the air. There is a burst of cold and suddenly, she’s jumped into the nothingness, the empty space between spaces and she’s closed it behind her.

            And he’s stuck in the alleyway, screaming curses and trying to control himself.

            But he doesn’t.

            He can’t.

            The papers will report that the city experience a freak anomaly—a fire that ravaged the town, killed half of the residents, and destroyed a third of the buildings.

            Sitting in their home, Cyrus will read this and sigh in defeat.

~*~

            He’s angry. Mostly with himself—he had never taught Dawn about the nothingness, about the space between spaces, except that it was forbidden. That if she went in there alone and got lost, she would probably be stuck forever. Where Dawn had learned to _open_ the portal into the nothingness, he would never understand. But Dawn is smart. She probably learned it on her own.

            There was nothing but raw information there. Raw potential—a space where life could be created and it could be destroyed. _Nothing_ was safe there, in the Distortion World.

            He caused this, he thinks, staring angrily at the shredded note that he’s kept for two years (for what feels like _200_ years). Whatever he’d done, he’d scared her into the Distortion World and now…

            Now she was lost.

            For three days, he stays in seclusion—he doesn’t shave, he doesn’t eat, he doesn’t drink. He falls back into a horrible, disgusting habit he had picked up during the most stressful years of graduate school and dropped by the time he started Galactic. And he wonders what Dawn would think if she smelled the smoke and the tobacco and, really, it only makes him want to smoke more.

            And then, after three days, he decides that enough is enough, drowns the remaining cigarettes in the sink, dons his old uniform and goes to the back porch. And there, he looks over his world, the world he’d worked so hard to create and he opens the portal to the space between spaces and closes it behind him.

            Houndoom sits at the front porch and keeps the house safe. It is winter, he thinks solemnly—all he wants is for master and mistress to come back and start a warm fire and make some hot food.

~*~

 

            The Distortion World hasn’t changed a bit, Cyrus thinks. Which is to say, everything is constantly changing and nothing is ever the same.

            But he ignores the worry and the fear (not that he would ever admit it _was_ fear) and begins to look.

            She’s in here. She has to be.

            With every corner, he thinks he sees her turn. With every step, he thinks he can hear her voice. With every breath, he turns and thinks he sees her standing there, smiling at him.

            But it gets him every time.

            It is cold in the Distortion World. Or it is hot. Or it is nothing. In the Distortion World, there is confusion and chaos, but there is also order. Nothing is absolute in the world and nothing is concrete and, yet, there is pattern and variation.

            In all honesty, this is Cyrus’s nightmare. He’s seen it on bad nights, nights where he awakes and he’s pressed closely to Dawn and she’s asking him what’s wrong, tell me what’s wrong, _Cyrus, are you okay?_

            As he walks/jumps/floats, he tries to think. Why did she leave? Why here? Was he so horrible, did she hate him so much that the Distortion World, this horrible, terrible atrocity of nature, was her only escape?

            Something must have happened, he thinks, to make her do this. Maybe she was just scared. Of what, he didn’t know—it couldn’t be _him_. He had done nothing to harm her, so it must have been something else…

            And then, where confusion once lay, anger springs up and begins to spit fire. How dare she? He provided for her, gave her everything she had ever wanted and he had treated her kindly. She was a child; a nuisance and he should have never chosen her. He should have let her to rot with the others—if death was her only option, then she _deserved_ the Distortion World and he should just turn back now.

            And then suddenly, anger subsided as if it had been quashed by a bucket of icy cold water, and suddenly, all he wants to do is hear her voice.

            “Just come back.” He says quietly, so quietly that he’s not even sure it’s _his_ voice speaking, “Come back. Tell me what you want. I’ll do whatever you want, just _come back_.”

            In the darkness, he hears something:

           

 _ʎɹɹos_ _ɯ,ı_

            But he can’t understand what it’s saying.

            When he looks down, he sees faces. Creatures writhing in the darkness, monstrous creation birthed from discord and suckled at the bosom of pandemonium. On a pendulum far, far away, he sees his parents staring scathingly at him and he suddenly wants to vomit.

            The writhing creatures reach for him, climbing through space to try to reach him. And suddenly, all he can hear is screaming—louder and louder and louder still. He backs away, his foot catches the ledge. His parent’s voice echoes in his ears

ʇuǝɯʇuıoddɐsıp ɐ ɥɔns ǝɹ,noʎ

 

            And suddenly he’s falling, falling into the chaos, into the writing hands and screaming mouths.

            “I give up.” He thinks to himself as he falls. “I’m sorry…I failed you didn’t I? I’m sorry…I tried. But I failed…”

            And then there is silence. Cyrus hits something hard and blacks out.

ı ɟoɹbıʌǝ ʎon

~*~

            Someone’s stroking his hair. He thinks he’s cold, but he knows not. When his fingers finally get enough to strength to touch his face, he finds that he’s burning hot.

            What’s cold are the hands that grasp his, the ones that run through his hair and across his forehead.

            **_Why did you come here?_**   She asks, her voice echoing above the chaos.

            “I came to find you.” He says quietly, his chest swelling.

            **_I asked you to stay away_**

            “You know I can’t do that, Dawn.”

            **_Why not_?**

            Cyrus wants to open his eyes and look at her. Maybe just to see those grey eyes on what felt like the last time he would get to. But her hand covers his face, like she’s trying to hide…

            “Because I want you with me.” He breathes, pulling her hand away.

          ** _No you don’t_.**

            Cyrus had never realized how pale Dawn could be. He sits up and turns towards her, hand outstretched to touch her face…but he pulls it back, stung by how cold her skin has become.

            “What—what _happened_ —?”

            _**I evolved**._ She stands, her legs shaky. She’s wearing a white linen dress; one Cyrus has never seen her in before. It flutters in an unfeelable wind. **_I became_**.

            “What? What do you mean, you “became”?!” Cyrus stands as well, towering over her, but he feels so damned small…

            **_The chaos asked me_** She’s so pale, so thin…she looks so sick. All Cyrus wants to do is take her back to the living world, to _their_ world, so that he can make her better ** _The chaos asked me if I wanted to stay with them. If I wanted to rule this place._**

            “Dawn…” Cyrus ignores the icy cold of her skin and cups her cheeks, leaning down and pressing his forehead against hers, “Dawn, _please_ …please come back. I can’t do this on my own.”

            **_I am not Dawn…not anymore…I have become_.**

            “Stop saying that.” He mutters, staring down at her, “You _are_ Dawn, and I need you to _come back_.”           

            She shuddered beneath him. Her arms jerked at the joints and she gave a great cough.

            **_I am Chaos_** She said firmly, blood starting to flow from her mouth **_I am disarray and I am bedlam. Why haven’t you left me here?_**

            “I didn’t want to leave you.” Cyrus said stubbornly, trying not to be horribly disturbed at the blood splattering from her mouth. He’s failing miserably, “I _won’t_ leave you.”

            **_You’re a fool_** Her eyes are pitch black, ruby red tears starting to form at the corners. She looks like a ghost and Cyrus feels something he hasn’t felt in a long time: _guilt_. This is his fault, he thinks staring down at the _creature_ she’s become.

            And suddenly he understands. He understands _everything_. Her leaving, her running, her entry into this horrible, terribly, nightmarish hell: it was the way the world worked, no one could change that. No man, nor pokemon, nor god…for the light there must be chaos. For the up there must be a down.

            For the light, there must be darkness.

            Cyrus understands and dear god, does it hurt. And goddamn it, how he wishes it would have been _him_ to suffer such a fate.

 _“_ I know I am.” He kisses her. The blood fills his mouth and he welcomes it. Dawn freezes, surprised…shocked even.

            “It’s okay.” He says quietly, “I’ll leave you alone. I’ll miss you…but this is your choice.”

            “I…” Dawn breathes against his lips, hands suddenly clutching onto his coat front. And then she covers her hand over his eyes and says, “Come with me”

            She leads him for some time—he says nothing, just grasps onto the hand covering his eyes. In the back of his head, he can hear the screams, feel the disapproving looks, but he concentrates on Dawn’s voice, “ _Okay, almost there, don’t look back, don’t listen to them, just listen to me.”_

            And then her hand is off his eyes, and he sees a straight path and light ahead and she’s _smiling_ at him. And Cyrus finally remembers what that smile looks like—he’s seen it before, in his dreams, in his nightmares, but _this_ …this is the real thing. The real deal…

            “Come on.” She takes his hand in her own and leads him towards the light.

            The screaming gets _louder_ , Cyrus thinks, and he almost, _almost_ looks behind him to see what’s going on. But he doesn’t because Dawn tugs on his hand and says, “Don’t.”

            He looks back to her.

            “Don’t ever turn around here. If you turn around, you’ll get stuck.”

            “Stuck?”

            “The fear will take you. And then, _they’ll_ have you, and you’ll never get out. Just keep looking forward.”

            The light gets brighter and brighter and Cyrus smells rain. And then he hears it, and the screaming dissipates away and the disapproving glare becomes less painful. And then, _wonderfully_ , he’s home. Back in their little house, back to where they started. Houndoom pads to Dawn and licks her hand as she passes by. She finally lets go of his hand in the main room, turning and kissing his cheek.

            “I’m sorry…” She says again, letting the pokemon into the house before closing the door, “I should have come back but…”

            “Quiet.” Cyrus hushes her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight, “Don’t talk about things you can’t change.”

            “You know I have to do back…”

            “I do. But…stay for one last night. Please?”

            Dawn chuckles softly, pressing her body against his, and looping her arms around his neck.

            Cyrus thinks that she has grown a lot taller. And then he remembers that in the Distortion World, time is different. What have been three days for _him_ could have been three months, three years…three decades for Dawn.

            He wants to ask but now seems like a bad time to talk about it.

            And then he remembers that two years have passed in the living world—in most cultures, she’s finally of age.

            She apparently knows this well, because she’s kissing him now, and it’s not the chaste, small ones she gave him of her youth.

~*~

            He clings to her that night and she does the same. And they breathe and move and it is beautiful. And in the morning, she leaves him. Opens the portal, kisses him goodbye, and tells him she’ll be back someday.

            And then she is gone. Gone into a world Cyrus couldn’t understand and didn’t care to. And, sure, he’s sad (sad…that’s not a foreign emotion to him) but she’s happy.

            He hopes.

            Time passes.

            Cyrus hangs up the old uniform and never puts it back on again. He lives and watches his civilization grow and he is alone. But when he looks into mirrors, or passes by panes of polished glass, or even just walks in the sun, he can see her. No one else can, but fuck everyone else, because that means he has her all to himself.             She’s always smiling back at him, her shadow following his every step.

            It does nothing to sooth the bitter loneliness he drowns in. But she is happy now.

            And he is content.

-end.


End file.
